Medicine & Health

Humans have known for centuries that copper is a potent weapon against infection. New research shows that the bacteria that cause serious urinary tract infections “know” this, too, and steal copper to prevent the metal from being used against them. Blocking this thievery with a drug may significantly improve patients’ chances of fighting off infections, according to researchers.

A blood test can predict whether patients are likely to die of a heart attack in the month after surgery, according to an international study involving thousands of patients.

Researchers led by Michael H. Tomasson, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown how an aggressive form of multiple myeloma resists chemotherapy. Multiple myeloma is a rare cancer of plasma cells in the bone marrow. Though the finding has no immediate benefit for patients, the scientists say it could help guide research into better treatments.

The survival of the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court presents a monumental moment to improve the U.S. health care system, says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “It is a uniquely American crisis that 50 million Americans don’t have health insurance and another 29 million are underinsured, meaning getting sick would ruin them financially even though they’ve been paying for insurance,” she says.

Victor Davila-Roman, MD, professor of medicine; and Yeshey Penjose, MD, a cardiologist from the National Referral Hospital in Thimpu, Bhutan, study a sonogram of a heart at the Center for Advanced Medicine. Penjose was training in echocardiography at the School of Medicine for two months as part of the Global Health Scholars Program.

“I expected the Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA), however, two elements of this decision are very surprising: the fact that the mandate survives under the taxing power while failing under the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause, and the fact that Chief Justice Roberts was in the majority without Justice Kennedy,” says Gregory Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Roberts’ vote looks to me, as a first impression, like a brilliant piece of judicial strategizing.” Magarian is a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk 
for Justice John Paul Stevens.

The Supreme Court’s decision today means the implementation of the Affordable Care Act can go forward, thus improving the delivery and affordability of medical care, says Timothy McBride, PhD, health economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Miday, an instructor of medicine in the hospitalist service, died unexpectedly Friday June 21, 2012. He was 29.

A protein required to regrow injured peripheral nerves has been identified by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The finding, in mice, has implications for improving recovery after nerve injury in the extremities. It also opens new avenues of investigation toward triggering nerve regeneration in the central nervous system, notorious for its inability to heal.

Researchers studying the genetic roots of the most common malignant childhood brain tumor have discovered missteps in three of the four subtypes of the cancer involving genes that are already being targeted for drug development.